Sunday, August 03, 2008

Tom Tyler as Captain Marvel





8 comments:

  1. Great casting...or the greatest casting?

    Swinebread, it's awesomely good. Whether or not a viewer is interested in superhero-type adventure, the Captain Marvel serial is often considered the pinnacle of the Saturday afternoon matinee serial format. If someone wanted to watch only one serial that epitomized the form and included all the ingredients that made serials so popular in their day, this would definitely be the one. It takes some liberties with the Cap mythos, but you wouldn't be the least bit bothered by that while watching it.

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  2. Funny. Just yesterday I was talking with a friend about how interesting was Captain Marvel and how DC has continuously failed to create a regular series that does him any justice. There have been some interesting minis or one-shots, like "Shazam!: The Monster Society of Evil", but DC seems to fear to rely on the fact that Captain is a just a kid under the cape, which is exactly the one thing that sets him apart. I guess I will still have to wait some more years to see a good comic book bearing the "Shazam!" tag.

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  3. Yes and no, Chris. Contrary to popular belief, the notion of Cap as being a big kid -- Billy Batson transformed into adult size -- was entirely invented by DC Comics. Strange but true! The original Fawcett character was manifestly a different person from Billy; a grown-up who traded places with Billy but had his own intellect and outlook while sharing memories. (On at least one occasion, Billy was even seen angrily muttering "Captain Marvel's just a big dope!" when Cap was distracted by an attractive woman. Oh yeah, Cap and Billy had separate romantic lives, to the extent that could be shown in the comics of the era.)

    I reckon the Fawcett original is a thousand times more interesting than anything DC ever did with the character.

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  4. Hmmmm... Interesting. I didn't know that and certainly had no clue how was the original Fawcett portrayal. Still, even if both Captain Marvel and Billy personas were different, it would still give a lot of room to Billy to play an interesting role. Anyway, all I know is that there is a lot more to Cap Marvel than what DC have given us :P

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  5. RAB: One of the interesting things I've experienced so far in reference to the Tyler Marvel was that he seemed to actually enjoy, embrace and approach the job with professionalism and dignity.

    Often, actors bad-mouth the work or character (Chris Reeves did with Superman and George Reeve also had well-documented, if apocryphal issues with his work). The failings to grow out of 'type-casting' is usually with the limitations of the actors and not the character. As far as I can tell Tyler had none of the problems associated with Marvel that others did. he may well have, but i have yet to see any mention of it.

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  6. Every time I see Tyler as Cap, I can't help but laugh, remembering him as "the Caped Madman" in Proctor and Bergman's hilariously redubbed J-MEN FOREVER.

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  7. I wanted so much to like Tyler in The Phantom serial, since I'd loved Captain Marvel; but it was so lame I could barely finish it. The Phantom of the comics was a crack shot and strong like tiger, but Tyler's Phantom never hit a thing, and the bad guys were forever getting the jump on him. And Tyler's acting didn't help matters.

    The SPY SMASHER serial is arguably the best of them all.

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